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TSR's 2022 Preseason D1 XC Top 50 Rankings: #50-41 (Women)
- Maura Beattie
- Jul 19, 2022
- 13 min read
Additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin
50. Lucy Jenks, Sophomore, Stanford
This fall, the Stanford women are going to go through a minor rebuild of sorts, Luckily, they have a talented nucleus of young distance standouts who the Cardinal could rally around this fall.
And on paper, Lucy Jenks could be one of those key building blocks.
During the fall of 2021, the Stanford youngster had an okay-ish day in her first major meet of her season, Nuttycombe, finishing 81st overall. However, after seeing that result as well as a 53rd place finish at the PAC-12 XC Championships, you can understand why we were surprised when Jenks earned an outstanding 49th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
Despite the wild fluctuation in her performances last fall, the 2021 winter cross country season provided us with a bit more stability. That season, Jenks finished 17th at the PAC-12 XC Championships and later would finish 92nd at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
As we approach the fall of 2022, this will be Jenks’ third cross country season with the Cardinal. And on paper, this could be a pivotal turning point in her career.
At first glance, some may wonder why we have Jenks listed in these rankings and not a few others in our "Just Missed" section. Sure, her national meet performance last fall was very solid, but her season as a whole admittedly did not excite.
But you have to remember that Jenks ran 15:41 for 5000 meters this past spring and also ran 9:04 for 3000 meters on the indoor oval. On the paper, the raw talent is there for her to be a national-caliber threat. It also doesn't hurt that we've seen her execute on her cross country potential before (albeit, not consistently).
Jenks will need to use the momentum that she gained during the indoor and outdoor track seasons to replicate her regional and national meet cross country performances on a more consistent basis.
If she does that, then she'll skyrocket up our rankings.
49. Laura Mooney, Sophomore, Providence
Providence's Laura Mooney could be a very underrated sleeper pick for his upcoming cross country season after her highly promising 2021-2022 cross country and track campaigns. Her overall consistency, steady improvements and long distance favoritism makes her a very underrated name in our eyes.
Mooney will be contesting the third cross country season of her college career this fall. In her collegiate cross country debut, Mooney was the 22nd place finisher at the BIG East XC Championships in March 2021, a respectable showing for her sole race of the season.
However, the fall cross country season was when we saw Mooney make some big leaps in her fitness.
Mooney started out her fall season with a respectable 8th place finish at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown before earning a far more promising 25th place finish at Nuttycombe. In theory, it was that Nuttycombe result that gave Mooney some key momentum heading into the postseason.
Mooney would improve upon her BIG East performance from the winter months by placing 9th in the fall-edition of the same meet, eight seconds out of the top-five.
The Providence standout would then help lead her team to the NCAA XC Championships, alongside veteran teammate Maria Coffin, after finishing 7th overall in at the Northeast Regional XC Championships.
The Providence low-stick would later place 60th at the national meet to cap off a very solid season which featured tons of reliable scoring.
Mooney’s growth on the outdoor track, specifically in the 5k and the 10k, are arguably just as important as what she did on the grass. Her recent personal bests of 9:18 (3k), 16:09 (5k) and 33:23 (10k) are strong marks for someone who is just beginning to enter the competitive tier of the collegiate landscape.
Admittedly, there isn't necessarily one result or time on Mooney's resume that jumps off the page and completely wows you. Still, she has all of the intangibles that you could possibly want. She's consistent, improving, experienced and has yet to truly have a poor race.
What's not to like?
Providence has a strong history of producing top-tier talents in the longer distances and then having those women translate their track success to cross country. On paper, Mooney seems to be following that same trend.
48. Joy Chirchir, Sophomore, Toledo
Toledo has thrived under the direction of Coach Andrea Grove-McDonough. The Rockets have become a fairly competitive team and their recruiting has also seen a major boost as well over the last year or two.
One of the unexpected stars of this Toledo program is Joy Chirchir, a boarderline low-stick who had a fantastic regular season in the fall of 2021.
The Rocket's front-runner made a massive statement at Joe Piane last fall, throwing down a jaw-dropping 7th place finish to defeat Katelyn Tuohy, Sarah LaTour, Bethany Hasz, Sintayehu Vissa, Allie Hays and numerous other top-level talents.
Chirchir wouldn't ever match the caliber of that result for the rest of the season, but she did place 20th at Pre-Nationals, another strong race to pair with her incredible Joe Piane performance. Once again, the Toledo star would take down numerous eventual All-Americans in the process.
After securing a win at MAC XC Championships, Chirchir would cut things close by finishing 21st at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships. She would end her season with an underwhelming 143rd place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
Chirchir's postseason was far from great, but her regular season was incredible. This Toledo ace showed up to two of the three biggest regular season meets of the year and delivered in a major way. Adding a conference title to her resume isn't too bad, either.
Chirchir surely needs to clean up her postseason results to improve her ranking -- that much is a given. Still, this is someone who beat Katelyn Tuohy and deserves our respect as a result.
For that reason, she comes in at TSR #48.
47. Zofia Dudek, Sophomore, Stanford
When looking at Dudek's (still young) college career, the Stanford runner has only contested races during the cross country season, a minor oddity for someone of her caliber.
The rising junior (sophomore by eligibility) has been, and will continue to be, an integral part of the Cardinal’s scoring five this fall. However, more importantly, this year could be her time to crack the top-40 All-American barrier after gaining valuable experience during her earlier cross country campaigns.
Dudek entered the collegiate scene during the 2020-2021 academic year and got to experience an unprecedented cross country season which first happened in the winter of 2021.
The Stanford ace jumped onto the scene in a big way that season, finishing amongst the top-three in multiple nationally elite fields prior to the NCAA Winter XC Championships. However, she raced through (or sustained) an injury at the winter cross country national meet and settled for an underwhelming 156th place finish
Fast forward to the 2021 fall cross country season and the Stanford runner was healthy enough to toe the line. Dudek didn’t open her season until October and had two respectable races leading up to the PAC-12 XC Championships. Her 38th place finish at Nuttycombe was encouraging, but it wasn't the same elite-level performance that we had seen from Dudek during the winter.
However, the Stanford youngster began to truly rally in the postseason. She placed 10th at the PAC-12 XC Championships and 7th at the West Regional XC Championships before delivering a solid 63rd place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
On paper, Dudek had a very strong season. However, the potential that we saw from her during the 2021 winter months leads us to believe that she has so much more to offer.
Without a recent race result, it’s a little hard to gauge where Dudek might be at currently. Still, based on her two cross country seasons thus far, we can assume that she’s more than capable of being an All-American this fall.
46. Adelyn Fairley (née Ackley), Senior, Liberty
Failey (née Ackley) enters her senior season with Liberty after just missing out on qualifying for the NCAA XC Championships last fall. And yet, despite that, she brings a ton of momentum in these rankings after big improvements on the outdoor oval in the 5k (15:54) and the 10k (33:49).
The long-time Liberty runner has competed at the cross country national meet before, namely during the unprecedented March 2021 championships. Fairley earned her spot to that national meet by winning the ASUN XC Championships that year and, ultimately, going on to finish 66th in her first national meet.
The fall 2021 cross country season was solid for Fairley as she never failed to finish outside of the top-six of any meet heading into the postseason. Her season was highlighted by a remarkable 6th place finish at Pre-Nationals, taking down numerous All-Americans in the process and sending a statement to the rest of the NCAA about the her true potential.
Admittedly, Fairley wasn’t able to repeat as a three-time ASUN cross country champion, but she did earn a 3rd place finish, only three seconds behind the winner. A 14th place finish at the Southeast XC Regional Championships, while solid, wasn't enough to advance Fairley to the national meet, a surprising development given her earlier performance at Pre-Nationals.
Fairley is one of the more experienced runners in the NCAA and although she has only competed at one national meet in her career, she shouldn’t be counted out for an All-American honor in 2022.
If Fairley is able to replicate the caliber of her 6th place Pre-Nationals finish in the postseason, then her ceiling for this season could be sky high.
45. Jenna Hutchins, Freshman, BYU
One of BYU’s newest members is former high school star Jenna Hutchins, arguably one of the greatest prep distance runners of the new millennium.
It was initially reported that the Tennessee native began training with Coach Diljeet Taylor and the Cougars during the spring semester. As a result, one would think that Hutchins has already gotten her feet wet when it comes to the general collegiate environment and the training regiment of a powerhouse coach.
The real question regarding Hutchins is, how effectively (and immediately) will her high school success translate to the NCAA scene?
At the high school level, Hutchins secured monster personal bests of 4:44 (1600), 9:49 (3200) and 15:34 (5k track), as well as a 15:58 (5k) mark on the cross country course, making her the first girl in high school history to go sub-16 for 5000 meters on the grass.
Times like those prove that Hutchins is capable of racing against the nation’s absolute best...we think.
The 2020 season saw Hutchins go undefeated across eight races, win by large margins and ultimately solidify herself as the top of the class. And while there is another high school megastar who has certainly caught the attention of many distance fans around the country, it's important to realize that Hutchins is in the same conversation.
With her freshman cross country season on the horizon, Hutchins will be guided by one of the nation’s best coaches and will benefit from training alongside aaccomplished teammates like Aubrey Frentheway, McKenna Lee, Lindsey Stallworth, Anna Martin and Lexy Halladay.
On paper, everything about Hutchins suggests that she could be an immediate All-American name in the NCAA. However, we haven't seen her race in quite some time, not since the 2021 outdoor track season.
For that reason, we're being a little more cautious with her ranking for now. Still, this is someone who could be incredible as soon as she toes the line.
44. Elise Thorner, Sophomore, New Mexico
Elise Thorner may not have had the strongest cross country season during the fall of 2021, but her recent string of performances on the track speak for themselves. How can you look at someone who ran 9:32 in the steeplechase and not think that she could be a top-50 threat on the cross country course?
New Mexico’s steeplechase stud has raced at two national meets in her career: the 2021 winter cross country national meet and the 2022 outdoor national meet.
Her 2021 fall cross country campaign, however, was run mostly outside of the Lobo's top-seven.
In the "Open" races at both Joe Piane and Nuttycombe, Thorner earned quietly great finishes of 6th place and 1st place, respectively. She was later the Lobo’s 10th runner at the Mountain West XC Championships, finishing 26th overall, before ending her season and then shifting her focus to the track.
Thorner put a lot of focus into the mile during the indoor season, running an outstanding PR of 4:36 (altitude-converted) before winning the mile title at her conference meet.
Of course, things really began to change for Thorner once she hit the outdoor track and when she started clearing the steeplechase barriers.
She dropped a massive amount of time in the event right out of the blocks, going from 9:52 to 9:32, and then nearly matched that PR at the NCAA Outdoor Championships when she ran 9:33 to finish 5th in a historically fast field.
The Lady Lobos have a slew of talented women, many of whom you will see ranked in the rest of our top-50. In theory, Thorner has the potential to be a key scoring member for her team, but she will need to capitalize upon the experience that she gained during the spring track season.
Few athletes in this portion of our rankings have more raw firepower and true talent than Thorner does. Still, her cross country performances will need to make a big leap in order for us to move her into a position that best suits her steeple PR.
43. Alessia Zarbo, Sophomore, Oregon
Oregon's Alessia Zarbo developed incredibly well over the course of the 2021-2022 academic year on both the track and the grass.
During her 2021 fall cross country campaign, Zarbo came out strong with a 26-second victory at the Lewis & Clark Opener Chase Race. However, she then finished 22nd and 28th at the Dellinger Invite and Nuttycombe, respectively.
Top-30 finishes in those fields are by no means poor, and that Nuttycombe result was encouraging to see. Still, it felt like there was additional upside within Zarbo that wasn't fully reflected in those results.
Zarbo would go on to hold her own at the PAC-12 XC Championships by finishing 9th overall before earning a 4th place finish at the West Regional XC Championships, two promising showings heading into the NCAA XC Championships.
The cross country national meet, however, didn’t go as planned for Zarbo as she faded to 137th overall. And while her cross country season was solid, it certainly left something to be desired.
But then Zarbo began toeing the line on the track. And when she did, we began to see a new side of her which led to some of the more impressive distance marks in the country. The French distance runner was consistently finishing amongst the top-six of each race she toed the line for and was incredible on the outdoor oval.
The Oregon star would ultimately run marks of 15:50 (5k) and 32:28 (10k), the latter of which was ranked at NCAA #2 last spring.
Ultimately, Zarbo would not qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships, ending her season prematurely after being unable to advance out of the regional rounds in either the 5k or the 10k. Still, her track times were dominant and her 10k PR, in theory, suggests that she could be one of the best cross country runners in the nation this fall.
Zarbo's resume isn't perfect. There are certainly some scoring deficiencies that could be better and the postseason hasn't been kind to her over the past year.
Even so, this Oregon ace still has strong cross country results and a truly elite 10k time. There is enough on her TFRRS profile to suggest that can be one of the absolute best distance runners that the NCAA has to offer.
Now, she just has to go out there and prove us right.
42. Brynn Brown, Sophomore, North Carolina
North Carolina was led last fall by then-freshman Brynn Brown who raced like a veteran last in her debut season for the Tar Heels.
Brown started off her 2021 fall cross country season with a bang, winning her very first collegiate meet, the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, In that race, she took down a highly accomplished veteran in Amanda Vestri by nine seconds.
The North Carolina youngster would follow-up that performance with a 39th place finish at Pre-Nationals. That was a respectable showing for someone who hadn’t raced that level of competition before, but her earlier rust-buster led us to believe that she would be closer to the top-20 or top-25 range.
Even so, at the ACC XC Championships, Brown once again raced with poise and crossed the line in 6th place, sending a statement to her conference foes that she was going to be a problem for the foreseeable future.
Brown then carried that momentum to her regional meet and again finished amongst the top names, helping the Tar Heels earn an automatic bid to the NCAA XC Championships. Brown would then cap off an excellent rookie season by finishing a very respectable 65th place at the national meet in Tallahassee.
Of course, the grass isn't the only area where Brown thrived. She put up some solid times on the indoor and outdoor ovals during the 2022 seasons, highlighted by personal bests of 4:37 (mile), 9:04 (3k) and 16:05 (5k).
There aren't many women in the NCAA who have the same upside that Brown does this season. The North Carolina runner still has plenty of room to develop, but she has already proven to be a lethal scorer and someone who will likely be contending for top All-American honors this fall.
One could argue that Brown's super high ceiling should give her a higher ranking (and we don't totally disagree). That said, this Tar Heel ace is still somewhat young and not all of UNC's youngsters have made massive leaps in their second year of competition. Plus, there are certain performances from last fall that Brown could improve upon (see 2021 Pre-Nationals).
Regardless, it's hard to find many cons on the resume of this up-and-coming distance star.
41. McKenna Lee, Rs. Senior, BYU
The departures of Whittni Orton, Anna Camp and Sara Musselman are going to be challenging to deal with, from a scoring perspective, if you're BYU. The Cougars have leaned on those women for a few seasons and now they will need to replenish the scoring in their lineup.
That said, McKenna Lee may be one of the most underrated and underappreciated distance runners in the country. She may not have the flashiest resume, but Lee has delivered strong results in the postseason numerous times.
During the winter cross country season, Lee put together a few somewhat unexciting (but certainly not bad) results. She placed 23rd at the Silver State XC Challenge and then 7th at the West Coast Conference XC Championships.
But then Lee surprised everyone with a better-than-expected 41st place finish at the NCAA Winter XC Championships, just one spot off from All-American honors.
As impressive as that result was, it would have been fair to question if Lee was a one-race wonder...if she hadn't put together an even better cross country campaign in the fall.
The BYU veteran earned a respectable 10th place finish at the FSU XC Open, but then began picking up momentum by earning a quietly great 23rd place finish at Nuttycombe, earning a modest 8th place finish at the West Coast Conference XC Championships and then a strong 46th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
On paper, Lee gives us very little dislike. She's experienced, consistent, has two top-50 finishes at the national meet and seems to thrive in large nationally competitive fields.
No, Lee doesn't necessarily have the low-stick scoring spark or high-octane scoring potency that a few other women do, but that may not matter if she's going to consistently deliver these kind of results.
The next step for Lee is trying to figure out how she'll reach the next tier of her fitness. Her entire resume suggests that she should be (and will be) floating outside of All-American contention this fall, but how much further can she climb from there?
Regardless of the answer, don't sleep on this BYU veteran in the fall.
